Ruin. As a verb (in any of its forms). "You ruined it." Everytime I hear that word, whether directed at me or not, I feel sadness and pity. That person was looking forward to something that he never got to enjoy. Sad.

Wow, I don't know if I can even type it. Growing up we were NOT allowed to use the word...fart...okay, that was difficult. To this day I still cannot hear it without cringing, and I can't say it to save my life. It's a four-letter word to me.

In a Little House on the Praire volume I read as a child, Laura's friend kicked a hornet's nest. The hornets attacked, and the boy wound up with a red, swollen body. The boy survived - but I developed an aversion to "swollen" and a life-long bee phobia.

I refused to pick a favorite word. But there are many words I dislike, all of which are over-used in ways that have left them largely meaningless on their own.

Words like "snarky" and "wonky" definitely fit into that category. "triangulate" is another.

These words are generally used to show coolness on the part of the user rather than to communicate something. As per the distinction I made on my blog last Saturday, that's Barking, not Talking. I don't see the point of it.

Never rarely ever means never. It implies an infinite “no way will you get what you want.” For me it is usually a challenge. As soon as you put it out there you have challenged someone to prove to you that their “never” is actually finite.

The F word. It's crude, lazy, and vastly overused. When used literally, it reflects a profound disrespect for something that ought to be holy. When used just as an expletive, it's simply lazy and reflects a profound disrespect for the feelings of the people who might happen to hear it. I have put it in the mouth of a character--once--but only because for that character in that situation, anything else sounded inauthentic. I'd love to go back to the days when such language was never used in public, in writing, or in the presence of a lady.

It's so... so... d*mned precious. And the near-universality of it has nearly put me off the Food Network for good.

And as The Missus will tell you, the common misuse of "hone" instead of "home" -- as in "he honed in on the correct answer" -- can drive me completely nuts. NOTHING makes me lose respect for a writer faster than that. (And yes, I know dictionaries are giving up the battle. Just not the dictionary in my head. Which is the only one that counts. :)

Any word that starts out perfectly good and then gets one or more suffixes added to it so it can take the place of an existing, perfectly clear and common word. According to my dictionary, graphic and graphical are synonyms. Compartmentalize turns a noun (compartment) into an adjective (compartmental) and then into a verb. Most times, the verb "separate" will substitute nicely. If compartmentalize and democratization are acceptable, then why not "transportization" or "reflexologicalism?"

Ulysses, you hit on another class of words used to sound cool, the "dollar word where a nickel one would suffice" category. I'm glad these were mentioned. Thanks.

The advantage of longer words is that they're easy to make fun of. Take "reconnoiter", selected by johno (thanks!). If anyone ever says, "I'm going to reconnoiter the situation," I simply reply, "Why would you do that to a perfectly good 'noiter?"

Most too-long words have enough sounds in them to lead to a bad pun like that. "Compartmentalize" has "mentalize" in it, so you can respond with "I'm always partly mentalizing things."

The beauty of puns is that people don't always know for sure that they're being made fun of, so it is not exactly a rude thing to do. But people who use these words do need to be made fun of. Desperately. Oh, yeah.

I'm not a big fan of sasquatch. It sounds like a description of something that bursted open after hitting your windshield.

Josephine Damian's choice of Uranus triggered some thoughts. It seems they now want us to pronounce it "urine us," whereas when I was being educated they called it "your anus". I wish they'd decide which way they want to go. Regardless, neither pronunciation adds elegance to your speech.

The planetary reference reminded me of a long-held beef of mine. In elementary school, we looked forward to each edition of the Weekly Reader. We were young and impressionable and didn't know that it was a lying rag. That publication led us to believe that we would be working a four-day work week, that we would be driving a hovercraft, and that Prince Charles would be the King of England. None of these has come to pass. To add insult to injury, we now find that, though Weekly Reader told us there were nine, there are only eight planets. Hmm. Maybe they should have gotten rid of Uranus instead of Pluto.

"Till" when used as a shortcut for the word until. When used in verbal language, it's almost always a lazy until, and as such should be spelled 'til. But spellcheckers freak out about that, and till passes because it's already a farming verb and banking noun.

I've written one book with maybe one or two uses of "it". Trust me, no one missed the word. The quality of the book has nothing to do with sentence structure, and no one dinged me on awkward sentences. Currently working on another book without "it" anywhere within the prose, too.

Hey, I AM a proctor! I just got home from my job proctoring. Rubber gloves are not involved, I swear.

My least favorite word? I used to be fanatically opposed to "ish" as an abbreviation of issue (of a magazine, I mean). I still think it's a horrible pseudo-word, but it doesn't make me want to do violence against the speaker/writer using it.

But my biggest pet peeve is words that are made up:possimisticchillaxI know all words were made up at some stage and Shakespeare added a number of words to the language in his plays & sonnents but the people who use the above words are not Shakespeare

I have two. The first, is 'stupid'. When I was a kid, my father used to say my mom was stupid. My sisters and I decided when we grew up, it would be a dirty word in our houses.

The second is really a phrase. "I don't care." When someone says that to you, they're dismissing what you're saying, and in essence you. So, I don't like the phrase. I guess 'whatever' is a single word in that same vain I don't like too.

Perhaps I should add that I loath it only when it's used as an adjective, not a transitive verb. I'm all in favor of appropriations. But only if they aren't appropriate appropriations. Inappropriate appropriations are ok, I guess.

I'm with kidcuisine --- Awesome has been ruined for us all by the Valley Girls and Nikelodeon.

But here's something better --- don't you love the way that language changes by the minute. As a good example, a friend of mine points out that there is no verb that can't be nouned and no noun that can't be verbed.

Also, Nathan, I have a new-ish blog and I'm trying to bring it to life by posting about writing-related blogs/posts/sites that, as an aspiring writer, I've enjoyed and found useful. Kicked the series off today with, well, you. The post is here; I thought you'd like to know. Who doesn't want to know when people are talking about them?

I'd have to go digging around in my "word expander" (makes me think of words as having unattractive elastic waistlines for some reason) to see all the THOUSANDS of drug names + obscure disease and procedure names that I hate...

Nathan, there's an equally horrible verb connected with 'proctor' - from back in the days when the Senior and Junior Proctors prowled the streets of Oxford looking for wrong-doing members of the university. If a Proctor caught you, you were 'progged.'

Flaccid!I just used it to describe Tampa doctors and then ran away from the conversation to write this when I realized the word is disgusting.I don't think I'm too comfortable with penis either. Let me rephrase that. I don't like the word penis very much. It sounds too cute for what it is, in most cases anyway.

Ha! That one came up in our novel-writing support group (which is desperately similar to Bob Newhart's group therapy sessions). I let it go, but then spent the next 20 minutes running it through my head. What the Hell does that mean?

Demur and coy are one thing, but I think that one is just deceptive. Self-deceptive, even.

I'm amused by how many of you hate the "C" word. It's very useful, even if it's the one swear word you still have to use carefully. It describes a dangerously self-centered woman in a unique way, one that can't be replaced without losing the impact. I only use it about once a year, but I enjoy it when I do.

Besides, as the late George Carlin said, it stands alone ... it's a word with real power to it. I could see fearing it, but hating it? Naw.

First, I love most words folks find obscene. Blame my ODD! The C-word, the F-word . . . all of them are very expressive. Though, I have to admit to using them much more orally than in writing.As a copyeditor for a Fantasy genre magazine, I run into 'st' words all too often. I think I'm developing an allergy to "amongst"! That's my least favorite word. Also hate anything with that stupid 'st' stuck onto it. Like "amidst" for amid. It's nearly as bad as the use of superfluous "al" suffixes on words like "scientific" into "scientifical".Bugs the bejeesus out of me.I'm also in the camp that despises "intellectualized" gargage like 'utilize' to mean 'use'. That's more of a speech thing, though, as certain insecure folks tend to think that three-syllable words sound more edumacatedal than a one-syllable word.I'm also in the camp with those who find it disgusting when people twist language to make it "cutsie". I loathe baby talk (except, of course, from the mouths of babes).I'm intrigued though that most of the responses here are more centered on concept than word. {shrugging, a thought bubble appears above the writer: "do I mention here my loathing for expressive metadiscourse in electronic mediums (that's "media", dumb butt!)?}David

Hmmmm.... the word that gets me every time is guardian. It took me years to stop spelling it as "gaurdian". I've always wanted to put the "a" before the "u". Even when I look at it now it looks right. Yep. That's my vote for least favorite word.

Two of my mom's favorite words are "irregardless" and "ironical." No matter how many times I correct her by saying "regardless" and "ironic," she still manages to use both words at least once during every conversation. It makes me want to cry.

Rilke: "You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born."

As cunt, pussy and snatch refer (at least nominally, anybody out there hate the word nominal? But it's so delightful to juxtapose with anatomical) to the anatomical location of birth...I just wonder, as a female writer myself...giving birth to images ala Rilke...and picking up on Erik's definition of a cunt as a "dangerously self-centered woman" - I don't know - as a female writer-artist-poet type...a dangerously self-centered woman giving birth to the future via images...is kind of a compliment, isn't it? At least it feels that way to me...

I wonder if there was a poll asking "Do you live in a culture that affirms your creativity?" How would people answer? Yes, No, Sometimes, Never...Always, and Hell No could be the answers to choose from...

I myself would probably choose...Hell No...but I do happen to be one of those cuntastic and contrary American female artists, what can I say for myself...

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